WILL AND CONVICTION

WILL AND CONVICTION

Dave and Mikhail were walking in the park after studying Geometry together. Dave seemed disturbed and wasn’t walking at the same pace as Mikhail was. Dave was left way behind and Mikhail stopped. Dave realized how far he was left behind and leaped ahead.

Mikhail: What is it, Dave?

Dave: Mikhail, I try to avoid indecent pictures and movies and all the media attention to sexuality and suggestive videos.

Mikhail: I understand and the problem is?

Dave: The problem is that I try to have strong will power to avoid all the trash but eventually end up right back where I started. I devour the pictures and enjoy them because they are enjoyable. I try to be strong and strengthen my will power, keep myself busy but I fall.

Mikhail:

Dave, Will is the courage Machine. They say, where there is a will there is a way. The way can be walked precisely because there is a will. Do not confuse it that because you are building your will, a way too will build on its own. Even if the way had to build itself, at every halt, it will ask your will, how much do you believe that the way is right? There will be no answer from the will. The will cannot think. The will can only be strong. Someone else is trying to make it strong. That ‘someone’ will have to answer the way. As the way does not find an answer, it halts and consequently the will does not know why it is being strengthened and stops persevering and you go back to old ways. The will here, is like a human bull dozer that can try to demolish a wall but takes a beating on the impact with the wall but does not know why it needs to demolish and it buckles under the pain of the impact.

There is no conviction. Only if you are convinced it is wrong will the willpower know to what end to strive towards and what is the price to pay if there is lack of will. The human bull dozer does not know why it has to pulverize and doesn’t think the pain of hitting the body on the wall is worth the pain. With every hit the pain is acute and it(will) weakens.

You have to be convinced that what is wrong should be refrained from. Although instincts and impulses that incline us to them (the wrong), they incline us to them because our nature is designed so. Similarly our intellect, our capacity to reason and knowledge is what is telling us that although we feel inclinations towards them, the inclinations should be kept in check. It is a different thing if even after being convinced you find it difficult. This is weakness and you have to try harder. You may still base your joy on those things (wrong) and hence it is difficult. It is like a dog that has become loyal to his master but the master may think it right for the dog to leave. But the Dog keeps returning. Loyalty to the master is what it (the dog) places its joy in and weakens the dog.

If you are convinced what is wrong should be avoided is the beginning of will power. Will power is not a huge drum to be filled by water. It rather is a huge drum with a hole underneath. The water keeps seeping but your conviction keeps willing towards filling more water. If human weakness makes you fail, it is precisely because all good things in life are worthy to be fought for and no good character comes easy. Falling is easier than picking oneself again.

PEACE

Mikhail and Dave are returning from the Annual Strawberry Carnival.

Dave says: Mikhail, look at all these people trying to enjoy themselves.

Mikhail: Trying?

Dave: Well, Yes, Mikhail. Do you really think they are happy?

Mikhail: I wouldn’t know. In the deepest place of their mind they know if they are. God too can look through their deepest desires.

Dave: I wonder whether we are and we can ever be. What are we doing actually in this world?

Mikhail: What do you mean?

Dave:

We keep struggling. We keep trying for this. Then try for that. The pursuit continues like as if to win trophies. Then we find out we are good at this or that. We get success at it, make money. Then we realize what money can do, what it can get us and how others too play along when you show them the money.

And life continues, problems come, some you solve, some are not solved but covered up but they haunt you. Then you run away from people and places, time and truth. This keeps going until you meet new people and lament not having the old. The new people become old and you long for novel things.

And you feel life is just one year repeating itself countless times, birthdays come and go, anniversaries, fortnights, leap years, kid’s sports day and then you forget some. You mourn and regret them. You love people and hurt them. You sing in joy and when lonely, sleep with them. You struggle everyday and you long for night’s sleep. Tomorrow morning you run out of bed thinking all those people who are expecting things from you and you wonder when you will ever get your life all by yourself.

And when you do get it for a moment, you cannot stand the silence and loneliness and quickly want people to surround you. When people are not doing that, you try to get into their lives and later want to escape out. These things continue for some time and in all this you try to find and still keep the pursuit on for the primary: Happiness. So tell me Mikhail then, what is Happiness?

Mikhail:

This is what I prayed to God today, “Thank you for your peace today. What is happiness but your peace today? For the want of peace makes me believe I am not happy and I am not happy because I think buying things and taking refuge in novelties and activities will bring me joy instead it is peace that I lack and I seek. Whereas if I have peace I would believe I am happy

STICKING TO DEFINITIONS

Mikhail visits the library to observe a new phenomenon. A book is reserved by a student if he doesn’t find it. This book cannot be then further renewed/re-issued (by another student who possesses the book) beyond the specified duration as it is reserved and will be pre-empted. One other student brings a book to the librarian who knows there is a huge fine on this student for defaulting the renewal/return of the book. Now, the Librarian is in a predicament. The student has come to the librarian to find the status of the fine (not necessarily to return/re-issue it). Every day that passes without renewing it multiplies the fine exponentially which only bolsters the library funds.

Now this student is present before the librarian with the book. Before her, stands another student who has reserved the book and needs it. On the other hand, if she allows the student to go without forcibly taking away the book, the library receives a huge amount of money.

The librarian wonders: It is only a matter of days, the fine will keep multiplying until it’s time to take the book from him for it is reserved.

Mikhail wonders after this incident. He thinks:

Shouldn’t we be sticking to definitions? What is a library? Isn’t it a place where a student can view, read, list, search and borrow books? How did it suddenly develop a commercial hue? Why wasn’t the student who had reserved the book get preference or rather be justly treated where in priority was given to receiving overwhelming amount of fine money (even if it is for a day) over his need for the book?
This makes me question certain things? Do we stick to definitions? Whom and what do definitions serve? Who should a library serve? Does it serve a student if a student is the subject of its definition or can the subject of the definition be compromised when wads of money come into the picture?

LOVE AND RESPONSIBILITY

LOVE AND RESPONSIBILITY

Dave: Mikhail, What you are doing?

Mikhail: I am trying to relate Love and responsibility.

Dave:

What a co-incidence. Yesterday sasha told me that I don’t think she is important to me and if she was, then I would give her my time and love. She made me feel as if I should be responsible towards her. So what are you writing about Responsibility. Can I read? Dave reads. And Mikhail has written:

We are assuming here that Responsibility is something that Man repels or dislikes to suit this deduction.

(We don’t have fight this assumption too hard, history of this world is enough to observe that Man does not like Responsibility or fulfils it out of ‘compulsion’. Thus here, I wish to prove something very ordinarily fascinating: Love means responsibility)

WHAT HAS TO BE PROVED----------------> LOVE IS RESPONSIBILITY.

IF YOU LOVE SOMEONE YOU HAVE TO RESPONSIBLE ABOUT THAT LOVE AND IN SHOWING RESPONSIBILITY IS LOVE SHOWN.

We start with a reference point. This reference point is priorities. We all know that priorities help us to better understand and value our time. If we have a vision, like Responsibility, Vision too has to guide our goals. If someone calls us to play and our vision is to be a good student, then our vision should prioritize our goals and thus vision should guide our decision to yield to the offer or continue studying. Thus I have chosen Priority as a starting point.

1) Responsibilities becomes easier with priorities

Why do we have priorities?

Because you learn to discern between Love and self-indulgence¹

(To love others is to be ready for others, to offer your time, your life and energy. To love oneself is self indulgence. )

Thus Responsibility becomes easy with priorities and priorities navigate by Love

2) Responsibility thus, becomes easier with Love.

How?

3) As Love has higher priority.

How is Responsibility getting easier just because Love has higher priority?

We are first stating that Responsibility becomes easier with Love. If they are directly proportional it means Love has higher priority. How do we determine that giving Love higher priority is easing Responsibility? Priority always culminates into a trade-off. If you give priority to play-time, the trade off is low grades. Thus giving love higher priority is easing responsibility because the trade-off here is that your self-indulgences (what priority tries to find love and separate from) are more tamed.

You are not allowing self- indulgence to be an obstacle as you wish to give priority to love.

What is exactly happening that by giving priority to love, Responsibility is getting easier?

For one, there is no obstacle by self-indulgence. Second, giving Love priority is hailing Responsibility as supreme as only in Responsibility can Man be fruitful essentially to others more than himself. Even self-indulgence can be fruitful to oneself but Man wishes to be fruitful to others.

Why do you wish to be more fruitful, especially to others (as to oneself, is self-indulgence)?

The minute, Man wishes to be more fruitful (to others) as a pursuit, he does it because he wishes to love.

So what have we got?

Responsibilities becomes easier with priorities (from 1)

Responsibility thus, becomes easier with Love. (from 2)

As Love has higher priority (from 3)

Giving Love priority is hailing Responsibility as supreme as only in Responsibility can Man be fruitful

Man wishes to be more fruitful as a pursuit, he does it because he wishes to love

RESPONSIBILITY->easier with Love->Love so that responsibility is desired-> Desired as Man can be more fruitful->fruitful because Man WISHES TO LOVE.

Thus Responsibility is Love.

When you are responsible of someone, it shows you love them. If you love them then, you should be responsible about them. Thus you can be responsible about something and yet not love it (e.g. Job but it won’t get ‘easier’ from above explanation) but you cannot escape responsibility if you love someone.

You will observe some of the most responsible jobs are not perhaps being the president of a country or a nuclear scientist. It is being a mother or a father. Governments fall and nuclear warheads are stolen and sold. But when a mother nurses and cares for a child, we say it is her responsibility. The word responsibility has a ‘work’ connotation. Responsibility involves work and lazy Man does not like work or at least prefers less work for more, more comfort to more adjustment, good sleep to less sleep.

We forget that a Mother loves. When she loves she fulfils her responsibility out of love. When she fulfills her responsibility out of love, she enjoys the responsibility and in this, Responsibility loses its ‘uneasy’ and discomforting connotation. Time and again, People have said, like the

Beatles –ALL YOU NEED IS LOVE.

The Bible-

· I may be able to speak the languages of human beings and even of angels, but if I have no love, my speech is no more than a noisy gong or a clanging bell. I may have the gift of inspired preaching; I may have all knowledge and understand all secrets; I may have the faith needed to move mountains-but if I have no love, I am nothing. I may give away everything I have, and even give up my body to be burned-but if I have no love, this does me no good.

~1 Corinthians 13:1-13

· Above all else, guard thy heart for it is the wellspring of life.

~Proverbs 4:23

· Many waters cannot quench love, neither can floods drown it.
~Song of Solomon 8:7

• Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends.
  ~Corinthians 13:7-8
  

• Let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth.
  ~1 John 3:18
  

• Love is patient, love is kind.
  It does not envy.
  Love is never boastful, nor conceited, nor rude;
  It is not self-seeking, nor easily angered.
  It keeps no record of wrongdoing.
  It does not delight in evil,
  But rejoices in the truth.
  It always protects, trusts, hopes, and preserves.
  There is nothing love cannot face;
  There is no limit to its faith, hope, and endurance.
  In a word, there are three things that last forever:
  Faith, hope, and love;
  But the greatest of them all is love.

~1 Corinthians 13:4-7

A father in his busyness thinks it trouble that his son’s grades are slipping and he is busy with meetings and clients. But he takes up his son’s studies. Now he may do it because he knows his son’s grades is his responsibility. His son is his responsibility.

But responsibility is an objective truth. It is like running someone down your car and now you are responsible for the treatment of the victim for his injuries. Responsibility is objective in nature. How would responsibility look if it had a face? What would responsibility be if it was personified? How can the father fulfill his responsibility well whether his sons’ grades improve or not? It is by love. The subjective truth of Responsibility is Love. Love is responsibility personified. God is love. That is why the Bible also says:

1 John 4:8

Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.

So the next time anyone tells you “it’s your responsibility”. The next time anyone says “you say you love me but you have no time for me” or you wonder, “Who are the people I love and how do I show and do it?” Think only responsibility. And not responsibility by sweating it out forcibly let Love guide it. Let love be responsibility

TRUTH AND JUDGMENT

TRUTH AND JUDGMENT

Mikhail and Dave had a training day in School. They all had to work hard cleaning their classrooms and corridors. Dave sees several school officers speeding past the hallways bumping into people in frenzy and shouting to be excused for their rush. He starts thinking, with his broom continuing to swab

Dave says: Mikhail, Nothing is ever right or wrong, black or white. There are always shades of grey.

Mikhail Why is that Dave?

Dave: Circumstances. You can’t tell a woman she has wronged in
aborting a child because her circumstances made her do it.
Circumstances provoked her to do the wrong thing.

Mikhail first, you say there is no right and wrong, now you say she was
provoked to do the wrong thing. So are we accepting here, that a
wrong thing has been done?

Dave: No, because she did not do it

Mikhail
Dave, there is an objective truth to everything in the world. If a man has died, a man has died, whether he was killed by reckless driving or because he came in the way of a vehicle is just the motive. It is dealing with the subject. But the objective truth is a man has died. You cannot change that fact but you can change the penalty on the vehicle driver (subject) depending on the motive.

So, are you trying to say, an objective wrong has been done but not a subjective wrong as circumstances provoked her and so she cannot be held guilty, hence she is not wrong? The question here is who is going to own up for objective truths? Objects look for subjects to correspond to, to give them realities over their own physical realities. Like a stone that is moved, true, a stone has moved and it is in the objective nature of the stone to move.

The greater question would be who or what can account for the movement of the stone? Who can validate the nature of the stone to move only when provoked? Who is ready to take the subjective ownership of the action? Else are we to believe that buildings can just move or fall without any provocation. if a stone that in its objective nature can move but no one is ready to seek the subject of the action?

So why can’t I tell the woman that she has done something right or wrong?

Dave: Because you are not empathizing with her circumstances by
doing so.

Mikhail But what if I don’t empathize with her circumstances and yet go
ahead to tell her if she is wrong?

Dave: But you should empathize with her circumstances.

Mikhail But what if I don’t consider her circumstances?

Dave: I guess, that would be judging her.

Mikhail: Judgment eh? So I am not supposed to tell her that she is right or
wrong because that would mean being apathetic towards her ‘circumstances’?

Dave: I guess, because Man always acts according to circumstances.

Mikhail

Does a circumstance make Man what he is or the choices Man makes? Circumstances demand man to act proper to its requirements, if he is late, run. If he is tired, relax. But Conscience demands that he act proper to what is right and do justice to it. Man always excuses his limitations by circumstances, where as sympathy demands others to asses for me that I failed due to my circumstances. But their sympathy does not justify or rule that I invariably act according to my circumstance.

The larger question here is where does judgment begin? Does it begin at-‘telling her she is wrong?’ Is that judgment? Or does judgment begin at-‘The consequence of judgment’ does judgment begin, in other words, at the content of her action I open her to or, some pre-supposed material, that no sooner I tell her she is wrong, she precociously realizes that she will have to (the pre-supposed material, the consequence) face, reply, atone, amend, admit and acknowledge, accept and suffer people’s reactions?

Dave:
I guess, yes, it would sort of make her think that telling her she is wrong automatically qualifies her to be categorized inferior to the rest. Man always strives to be good in principle but she acted against the principle. In being reminded of it, will patently inflame her and reveal to her there are going to be ‘consequences of acknowledging wrongdoing’

Mikhail So where then does judgment begin (as evil)?
Is it in correcting people and confronting them on objective truths (deceit, harm, lies, dishonesty etc) or in mentally manhandling them to own up and banishing them, thereafter into a inferior, metaphorical prison to be shared on an island with other wrongdoers?

Dave: The latter I guess.

Mikhail:
This is where compassion comes in. to correct people, is not being judgmental, as political correctness or character assassination or glorifying Circumstantial Man would have it. But have compassion to understand that she has to have knowledge on the consequence of her action and not necessarily imprison her identity with ‘action’ as the sole witness to their crime.

Compassion demands to give individual and his identity another chance where another action will speak in favor of his identity. Man goes to prison, after all, to be reformed and set free. The only eternal prison then should only be God’s Judgment. Until then we are called to correct and be compassionate.

CAUSES AND EVENTS OF JOY

It is the end of the mid-term tests. The school is indulging in usual revelry at this time of the year aftermath the exams. Mikhail has a radiant smile on his face. Students are bustling out of their class. Dave too leaves from one of the classes.

Dave bumps into Mikhail on the stairs. He walks with him until the first storey and then explains, “Mikhail, I am so happy, the pain is over. The exams are history, a thing of the past. It is only joy from here.” Mikhail has a modest joy on his face but it is not one consistent with the joy Dave feels. Dave wonders, “Whats wrong, Mikhail, Aren’t you overjoyed the exams are over?”

And Mikhail says:

Dave, I am happy that exams have come to an end. But my joy is very different from your joy and it is rightly so because of the boys we are, the lives we lead and what it means to both of us. I am joyful at your joy but I apologize, that I am in a little contempt at the joy you seek or that has found you. I do not look down upon your joy but I am hopeful that if I explain my reason for my joy, that you would know that your reason for your joy is not joy but like an exam, only a figment of the life you lead. I would have to be brutally honest; you are my friend, so please allow me to be.

Dave: Yes, Mikhail, Go on, I trust your intentions.

And Mikhail says:

Joy is Cause oriented and Event oriented. The cause of my joy is not the conclusion of exams but myself. I am the cause of my joy and hence my joy is ethereally meaningful. I feel proud of the efforts I put in. I worked diligently towards my goals and respected my studies that being a student is my first obligation and carried it out in all sincerity. My joy is Cause-oriented, the exams are but an event in time which will fade away into history like you said, a thing of the past. My goals and pursuits in life are to cause my own joy and the examination is but an opportunity to realize them.

Dave, you have shared with me the deepest sense of your being. You have told me how you slacked around all semester and got your projects and assignments done from outside. You compromised examination preparation, barely scraped through journal submissions with not a little help from your class mates and friends who filled in either for your absenteeism or your part of the work and role in the group. I apologize I cannot mince words with you

If you admit what I say is true, your joy corresponds to an Event oriented joy. An event has taken place-Exams are over. You have surpassed the event and it brings you joy to think- this has passed too. Seeking joy from events is not innate in the nature of joy to last. This event of exams perishing and you surviving may bring you joy but the memory of these exams may not bring you joy. You will only look back and heave a sigh of relief, Thank God those times are over!

When you seek joy in events without working hard so that you may sow of what you reap, you will only be at the mercy of events, they will come and go. You will thirst again in want of events and when they come you will take refuge until the event has passed but Man will always need joy. His heart will always be restless. In an event, there is struggle and in the end, it may dangerously culminate into glorification of surpassing or being victor at the event in the case of Event oriented joy. There is nothing to feel proud about in it for oneself. It’s just the event but the event goes, the cause stays.

THE SHADOW ANALOGY OF GOD

A hot sunny afternoon, in the scorching heat, Mikhail and Dave are walking up the street. They have missed their bus and prefer walking home. There is long silence and sweat trickles down their faces. Dave breaks the silence… “Mikhail, how would you put for me in simple words God’s impact on Man?”

Mikhail replies: But Dave, there could be a thousand ways one could say “And God is this” and “And God is that” and “God is all this”…”God is all that.”

Dave says: Mikhail, anything that comes to your mind now, anything, think of us today, think of now.

And Mikhail says:

Dave, Think of this street that we are walking on. It is rather unbearably hot day. We both are sweating sea of water. But apart from all that, Can you see our shadows that follow us? These shadows that are formed are peculiar in the sense they are not there all day and they aren’t present anytime we wish to see them. The Sun shines, the shadow appears. We cannot see the shadow if there is no sunlight.

God is that Sun who makes us see things beyond our capacities. The things we cannot see, feel, experience, grasp or understand are ubiquitous but God shines his light often to make shadows of things that we can perceive. By his light, we can see a shadow of himself in all things that can be understood and experienced, visible and unseen. The same shadow that we can see now, due to the light of the sun, often God takes away to demarcate God and Man.